Weeknote 26, 2023

Copying an idea from Mita Williams...

§1 Python

At 12, I taught myself BASIC programming. Can I repeat the trick at 52 with Python?

My plan: Work through Allen B. Downey's Think Python, letting each section sink in before moving on. Once I've finished that book, see where I am and decide what to do next.

Downey's implication that most programming instructions can be classified in one of five ways fascinates me. (Those five basic classifications: input, output, math, conditional execution, repetition.)

§2 Fusion

A blog post originally written in 2012 (and updated in the meantime) to argue that nuclear fusion will never be used for energy generation, not for the scientific reasons doubters usually raise, but for economic ones.

§3 Music

The story goes that Charlie Puth made this track in 2014, then disowned it years later when jerks mocked it. If he would release it as a single, I would buy a copy.

§4 Quotations

"You can’t beat an ideology with evidence. The ideology controls the rules of evidence, not the other way around." -- Tressie McMillan Cottom "His determination to tell it like it is has been hampered by his towering ignorance." -- source unknown